Salem child porn arrest after tip leading to cloud storage of images

SALEM – Police raided the home of a 42-year-old man and later arrested him for possessing child pornography after getting a tip from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to a police affidavit.

A judge found there was enough evidence leading to the June 28 arrest of Mark Dawaliby of Salem after a probable cause hearing on Wednesday.

Dawaliby will now have his cause bound over to superior court, where he could be indicted by a grand jury.

He was charged by Salem police with five counts of possession of child pornography and eight counts of possession of child sex abuse images.

The state's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force first received a tip about images kept on a Microsoft Skydrive account, an online storage account, on Oct. 22, 2013, Salem Detective Ryan Sambataro said in a sworn affidavit.

Investigators subpoenaed information about the Internet Protocol address associated with the Skydrive account, which led them to a Cole Street home where Dawaliby was living, police said.

A search warrant was executed on Dawaliby's home on March 6, 2013, to seize computer and other media devices from the residence, police said. Detectives interviewed all residents inside the home.

"After a lengthy, voluntary interview, Mark verbally confessed to having previously searched for, downloaded and viewed child pornography and verbally admitted he had a problem," Sambataro said in the affidavit.

Dawaliby told police that he used a peer-to-peer networking program called Frostwire to find the pornography and admitted he used the desktop computer in his son's bedroom to download the pornography, according to the affidavit.

A forensic examination of the machine found 12 images and 1 video containing child pornography involving the young girls, according to police. The girls shown in the photos and video are believed to be between ages 7 and 9 years old,

All 13 charges filed against Dawaliby are felonies. Eight of them are Class A felonies, each punishable by up to 7½ to 15 years in state prison.

Police are asking for the public’s help identifying a woman accused of breaking into several cars last month and stealing valuables inside.

UPDATED 12/12 @ 9:55 am

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